Daniel Pelka: Mother and stepfather get 30 years for campaign of 'unimaginable cruelty'

A mother and stepfather who starved and then murdered four-year-old Daniel
Pelka will spend at least 30-years in prison after a judge condemned their
campaign of “unimaginable cruelty” and “incomprehensible brutality”.

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Daniel Pelka was battered to death by his mother Magdelena Luczak and stepfather Mariusz KrezolekPhoto: PA

Mrs Justice Cox said: “As the trial has progressed, harrowing details of the unimaginable acts of cruelty and brutality inflicted on little Daniel, over many months, have exposed both the torment and despair he must have suffered and your callous disregard for his pain and distress.

“Time and again, knowing exactly what you were doing to him, both of you concealed your conduct from the authorities by a series of deliberate and elaborate lies, designed to put them off the scent and to prevent them discovering Daniel's true plight.”

Daniel, who weighed just 1 stone 9 lbs, when he died on March 3 last year, had been subjected to water torture and salt poisoning before being eventually being beaten around the head by Krezolek.

Locked in his freezing, urine soaked cell, Daniel lay dying for 30-hours, while Luczak, 27, and Krezolek, 34, carried on their normal lives, refusing to call an ambulance.

Police admitted they could find no motive behind the campaign of abuse, other than the fact that Krezolek did not like the quiet, unassuming little boy.

Mrs Justice Cox said: “For reasons which are unfathomable, Daniel became a target for derision, abuse and systematic cruelty, designed to cause him significant mental and physical suffering.”

The court heard how Daniel had been regularly imprisoned in a small unheated box room while the couple drank and took drugs in their Coventry home.

The door to the room had been adapted by Krezolek so that Daniel, whose emaciated frame was likened to that of a concentration camp victim, could not escape or even see out of the keyhole.

Referring to forensic evidence found on the door, Mrs Justice Cox went on: “The small hand and finger marks on the inside of that door provided a poignant image of his desperate attempts to escape.”

The judge said one of the most aggravating factors in the case was that before he was beaten to death, Daniel had been the victim of chronic and systematic starvation which had been so chronic his bones had ceased to grow.

The medical evidence in the case, the judge said, showed that Daniel's emaciation was regarded by experts as "unprecedented" in Britain.

The judge continued: "They likened his appearance to those who failed to survive concentration camps, and that comparison was not made lightly.

"As the months passed, Daniel increasingly scavenged for food, from other children's lunch boxes, from the playground or from rubbish bins.

"He would have suffered extraordinary hunger, increasing abdominal pain and, ultimately, a feeling of hopelessness. You, Magdelena Luczak, knowing of his hunger, gave specific instructions to his teachers that Daniel was not to eat any more food than the small packed lunch he had with him.

"Both of you constructed a careful and wholly untruthful account that Daniel had a serious eating disorder and learning difficulties, which he may have inherited and for which he was receiving medical treatment.

"This account was deliberately designed to prevent interference by school, medical and welfare personnel, and to perpetuate the brutality being meted out to him."

The scale of his suffering was truly horrific."

A serious case review has now been launched in order to assess if more could have been done to prevent Daniel’s abuse and murder.

The investigation will look at the role of teachers, social workers, medical professionals and the police.